o 



8 A mono; the Birds in NortJici-n Shires. 



larch woods in the Rivelin V'alley — around Hollow 

 Meadows — are, or used to be, a very favourite resort 

 of this Hawk, possibly because keepers were some- 

 what lax, or never visited some of the coppices from 

 one year to another. In these larch and spruce-fir 

 woods, many old nests of the Sparrow-hawk might 

 be seen, the deserted tenements of years and years. 

 It was also rather remarkable that most of these 

 nests were in trees within a stone's-throw of the 

 artillery volunteers' target, and all around them were 

 larches and spruces snapped and splintered, and the 

 ground and rocks scored by the conical cannon-balls 

 w'hich lay in dozens all over the place. From one 

 nest in this wood we obtained, by careful manage- 

 ment, never quite emptying it, no less than fourteen 

 eggs during a single spring. Curiously enough upon 

 more than one occasion we have found a nest of the 

 Goldcrest in the same spruce-fir as the nest of the 

 Sparrow-hawk. 



Nowhere else in our experience were the Magpies 

 allowed to live in such peace as they enjoyed in this 

 romantic valley. On the south side, from Bell Hagg 

 onwards to Hollow Meadows, was almost one con- 

 tinuous woodland, coppice succeeding coppice, until 

 they terminated in the larch and spruce woods, where 

 the Sparrow-hawks bred, and through which W^yming 

 Brook bored its way under a perfect archway of 

 trees from its source on the Bamford Moors near 



